“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”

― Frank Herbert

Friday, September 13, 2013

You can get sick but life does not care.

Fortunately for me, I am feeling better today. Not 100% but not miserable. This is just as well, since events continue to move along in the outside world.

I once had a nice little Jeep Wrangler. It's the only vehicle I ever bought new. It didn't get very good mileage, about 22 to the gallon in the mountains. There wasn't any room for groceries, and the back seat was a joke. Still, I had a great time with it. My wife did not have a great time with it. She said she could punch her finger through the thin material of the door ( she couldn't but I can see what she meant), and the roof was a rag top, which she didn't like much. She didn't like the manual transmission.

Then my kids came home from Canada. At the time we had the truck, a 1999 Cherokee Sport, a 2002 Liberty, and my Jeep. The kids didn't have a car in Canada because they didn't need one in Vancouver. You could ride the ferry, the sky rail, or the bus where ever you had to go. My son took the Liberty, but we didn't really have a match for my daughter. The 1999 Cherokee was long in the tooth.

It was decided we needed a new vehicle for my daughter. Something big and safe. My wife felt the "toy" car had to go, and I could think of no reasonable defense. We went to our Jeep dealer. We buy all of our vehicles from her and the sight of one of our Jeeps pulling into the dealership gladdens her heart mightily.

She had just the thing. A nice Jeep Commander with under 20,000 miles. The miles per gallon was not good, and the Jeep Commander was being discontinued, but it fit the bill and we got a good deal on it. We traded in my Wrangler. It looked brand new, and had all the maintenance paperwork. Somebody got a good vehicle when they bought that Wrangler used.

To date the biggest maintenance costs on the Commander have been tires. A set of four tires runs about $650.00. It did have a problem with some kind of transmission regulation device but the dealership fixed that for $125.00.

Today my daughter called and said the battery was dead. I told her to call her brother at work, have him come pick her up when he gets off, take the old battery to Walmart, trade it in on a new one to avoid getting ripped off for the "core " exchange fee, and she should be good to go. This is the first time she's had a dead battery. You only learn this stuff by taking care of it when it happens to you. Taking the battery out and hooking it up correctly is not hard.

10 comments:

Tell me about it. I have a leak coming from a stopped up heater box, and the only way they can get to it is to remove the entire dashboard. Which is going to take all day. So labor would be around $800. I have been to 3 different places for estimates. I wouldn't care so much except it's getting worse and I don't want it to start molding in my car, particularly since one of the boys has asthma. Sigh.

I wonder if there is really such a thing as affordable car repair. I've spent a lot of money on the truck and the Cherokee in the last year, but the cost of replacing either of them would be much more. It's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. I hope you can find some place that will do it for less, the labor costs seem really high.

I haven't bought a new one since 97, I think. I don't ever plan on buy a new one again. what is it 20-25% depreciation the first time you drive it off the lot? and 40 to 60% after the first two year? That's crazy.

I know. But with a Wrangler, you never know who had it before you. Some old guy who took care of it, or somebody with a teenage kid who beat hell out of the thing and that's why they traded it in. All things considered though, next time I'll buy a used one, preferably one that was traded in by someone my dealer knew. If it has Florida tags that would be best, because those come in virtually mint. If it has Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, or Alabama tags I'm not touching it. Those vehicles see some hard use.

oh I bought my truck almost two years old, because it only had 5500 miles. After I priced the three yer old models and the 2 yr old versus the mileage the one I wanted, I did bite the bullet and pay just a little more than I wanted. but I paid it off in 8 months so I saved from having to pay most of the interest.

But how to do it?

“The worst evil which befalls our race is, that when we are wronged and plundered, all the world laughs around, and we are compelled to suppress our sense of injury, and to smile tamely, when we would revenge bravely.”

― Walter Scott, Ivanhoe

Sooth

"I certainly do not wish to live in a society dominated by blacks, Mexicans, and Orientals. Look at Africa, Mexico, and Asia."

Edward Abbey

Moon Phases

Practical News

Edward Abbey

"It might be wise for us, as American citizens, to consider calling a halt to the mass influx of even more millions of hungry, ignorant, unskilled, and culturally-morally-genetically, impoverished people...Why not [support immigration]? Because we prefer democratic government, for one thing; because we still hope for an open, spacious, uncrowded, and beautiful--yes beautiful!--society, for another. The alternative, in the squalor, cruelty and corruption of Latin America, is plain for all to see."

Bugging Out. It's fraught with peril.

T-28 : They don't make 'em like that anymore!

Crank that big radial up.

George Orwell

He knew whereof he spoke.

Self Defense

"There exists a law, not written down anywhere, but inborn in our hearts, a law which comes to us not by training, or custom, or reading. A law which has come to us not by theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right."

Marcus Tullius Cicero 106- 43 B.C.

Ferret and friend.

Ferratus: Little Thief

but good friends

Orwell

Steven Seagal

"There was a time when I thought I was doing a good thing with good guys for a good cause. Looking back, I think I really wanted to be a warrior."

The Magic Ferret

“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot...”

― Robert A. Heinlein, Friday

John S. Mill

Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character had abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and courage which it contained.

Oswald Spengler

"This is our purpose: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us; to live in such a way that we may be proud of ourselves...."

Honor

" Everything that is called duty, the prerequisite for all genuine law and the substance of every noble custom, can be traced back to honor. If one has to think about it, one is already without honor."

Oswald Spengler "Thoughts"

Smokey

Elaine Boosler

"When women are depressed, they eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It's a whole different way of thinking."

Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War

At the beginning of an undertaking the enthusiasm is always greatest. And at that time, both in the Peloponnesus and in Athens there were great numbers of young men who had never been in a war, and were consequently far from unwilling to join in this one.

Germaine Greer

"Perhaps catastrophe is the natural human environment, and even though we spend a great deal of energy trying to get away from it, we are programmed for survival amid catastrophe."

Jeff Cooper

"The police cannot protect the citizen at this stage of our development, and they cannot even protect themselves in many cases. It is up to the private citizen to protect himself and his family, and this is not only acceptable, but mandatory."

When seconds count, the police are minutes away.

Or in my case, maybe an hour or so.

Robert A. Heinlein

"I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them."

Careful what you say.

Security

He is best secure from dangers who is on his guard even when he seems safe.(Caret periculo, qui etiam tutus caveat)

Publius Syrus, 50 B.C.

Long Ago and Far Away

A good novel

An interesting book about something no one remembers anymore.

Jared Diamond

If you use a bolt action military rifle, you need stripper clips.

You can still get them if you look.

A useful book

I saw her off the coast of Lebanon.

Nobody will ever see a BB in action again.

Correct on both counts."

"You have to defend your honor. And your family."

Suzanne Vega

T-28 Trojan

My Hobby

A good general guide.

Huey

You can't tell the players without a program.

So many guns, so little time.

The Road

The book is great, and so is the movie.

A little of both.

“Chasing angels or fleeing demons, go to the mountains.”

Jeffery Rasley

Mountains

“Mountains seem to answer an increasing imaginative need in the West. More and more people are discovering a desire for them, and a powerful solace in them. At bottom, mountains, like all wildernesses, challenge our complacent conviction - so easy to lapse into - that the world has been made for humans by humans. Most of us exist for most of the time in worlds which are humanly arranged, themed and controlled. One forgets that there are environments which do not respond to the flick of a switch or the twist of a dial, and which have their own rhythms and orders of existence."

Robert McFarlane

Different Aircraft I have flown

Piper Comanche

T28B and T28C Trojan

T-34B Mentor

TH57- Sea Ranger

UH-1 Huey

TA4- Skyhawk

Cessna T-141

Piper Archer

Piper Arrow

Piper Tomahawk

Cessna 172

Cessna 150

About Me

I am a USMC veteran . I live a quiet life in a very rural county. We have one town, three lakes, a river and lots of forest. My hobbies include reloading, shortwave radio listening, and collecting old military rifles and side arms. I do my own gunsmithing. I flew different aircraft from 1972 through 1995, at which point I couldn't pass the flight physical anymore. I have worked or lived in 36 foreign countries.